Scully and Mulder find their investigation frustrated by lies and surveillance devices in a February 1994 episode of The X-Files called "E.B.E" ("extraterrestrial biological entity", which doesn't roll off the tongue like simply "E.T."). I like how this episode lays a groundwork of uncertainty for everything else.
For one thing, Mulder finds out there's a limit to how far he can trust his mysterious "Deep Throat" source, who in this episode lies and even deliberately gives Mulder false evidence of a U.F.O. in an effort to manipulate him. Meanwhile, Scully finds a listening device hidden in her pen. That's gotta be a small device to fit in a pen but not at all far fetched. Can you imagine how small cameras and listening devices can be now? Ask someone from a country like South Korea or Japan where voyeurism is at epidemic levels.
Back in the U.S. in the '90s, though, surveillance was something the government used against pesky FBI agents. Mulder tears apart his apartment looking for hidden bugs, finally finding one in a power outlet. He Scully then split up and carefully meet up at a convenience store in another state before embarking on their plan to follow a freight truck that may be carrying a crashed alien ship. But whoever's manipulating Mulder is using his own desire to find aliens against him, a plot device I really liked.
This is also the episode that introduces the Lone Gunmen, those lovable crackpots.
It occurs to me that there's been a massive shift in how Americans commonly regard conspiracy theories and exploring ideas of government deception. Now it's Trump's White House staging bogus inquiries into classified U.F.O. intelligence and it all seems like a sad pantomime. Or maybe they took a page from the shadowy characters who sought to use Mulder against himself. Scully has a nice line in the episode, "The truth is out there. But so are lies."
The X-Files is available on Disney+ in Japan.
No comments:
Post a Comment